And the corporation was plunged into further turmoil after gagging a dealer who sold it the Porsche with FKL plates, sparking accusations of a cover-up over the blunder.

Mark Waring, of Surrey-based Rennsport Classics, was approached by the Mirror to comment on the scandal that infuriated Argentines and left Clarkson and his team fleeing for their lives after being attacked by an angry mob in the South American country.

Asked if BBC chiefs appeared interested in his Porsche 928GT’s number plate, he replied: “You might not be surprised to know that I have been contacted by Top Gear and basically I can’t comment.

“They have given me the number of the press office for you. So I can’t comment. I really can’t. I saw the car on the news and they called me a while after that.”

He said: “If the BBC are involved in a cover-up to protect this man it’s ­unforgivable. If this was an ordinary employee they would be sacked.

“He has become not just become a local embarrassment but an international one to the BBC. If they are trying to withhold information, I will write to the director general to ask him to clarify.”

The BBC refused to comment. But a source insisted officials had not tried to gag Mr Waring. The insider said they approached him as part of a “duty of care”, as they would any person who may find themselves embroiled in a media storm.

But the Mirror was the only news ­organisation to have contacted the dealer. The source added: “He could have spoken if he wanted to but may have chosen not to. He wasn’t gagged.”

Clarkson’s Porsche was found ­abandoned near the border with Chile last Thursday after the Top Gear team fled Argentina in a convoy. Police found the BEII END plates inside the car.

The presenter was once branded a “monumental bellend” by co-star James May as he tried to defend him against racism accusations.

Top Gear said: “The number plate was not used at any point during filming. It was originally intended to be in the programme’s final scene, a game of car football, but that ending has changed.”

The admission appears to sit uneasily with the BBC’s claim the Porsche’s H982FKL plate was not designed to provoke ­controversy. The source insisted executives bought the car on the back of an advert posted by Mr Waring but the offending number plates had been blurred out – adding: “It was a coincidence.”

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The Mirror has seen pictures of what is thought to be the Porsche in question on a classics car website. It is on an advert asking for similar owners to come forward – saying they have sold the one pictured.

The registration is blurred. The original ad that alerted the BBC to the Porsche, which was bought in the summer, has yet to be uncovered. Argentinians believe the BEII END plates were a further pop at the nation, where feelings still run high over the 1982 Falklands War with Britain.

One unnamed official said: “We know bellend doesn’t mean the end of the bell and is a word used instead to describe the head of the penis which is often employed as an insult in England.

“We regard it as another insult to the people of Argentina. We’re sure the Top Gear team were planning another ­provocation with the number plate in the same way they provoked us with the one referencing the Falklands War.”

As the controversy raged, Clarkson was spotted with Top Gear executive producer Andy Wilman outside a ­restaurant in London on Tuesday. The pair appeared unshaven and weary.

But there was more bad news for the presenter and his team after it emerged an ­Argentine judge was considering whether to open a criminal investigation into plate changing – an offence that carries a three-year jail sentence.

When the Porsche was found ­abandoned it had been fitted with another number plate, HI VAE.

Court sources said the use of different number plates to those that appear in the car’s official documentation would constitute a crime of falsification. The car, still at a police station in Tolhuin, southern Argentina, is expected to be scrapped or sold at auction.

Clarkson, who arrived back in the UK with James May and fellow-presenter Richard Hammond early last Friday, pulled out of a scheduled appearance on ITV’s Loose Women on wednesday.

He blamed changes in his filming schedule. But earlier he tweeted a snap of himself in bed with chef Heston Blumenthal in a charity bid to raise money for Syria through Unicef.

At the weekend, Clarkson wrote about the attack by irate Argentines over the FKL plate blunder.

Police had been called to the five-star hotel where the crew were staying after angry war vets swarmed into the lobby and warned the presenters and staff to leave “or face the consequences”. Clarkson said: “Richard, James and I bravely hid under the beds in a ­researcher’s room while protesters went through the hotel looking for us.

“The car park was filling up. More were arriving.

“This was starting to get ugly. Twitter was rammed with messages from locals. They wanted blood.”

Terrified members of the crew had been stoned as they fled towards the Chile border. A technician was hit in the face and injured.